


The World's Got Me Dizzy Again

by myryry



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post Season 5, Stydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-11-14 06:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11201976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myryry/pseuds/myryry
Summary: “Do you understand the point of a club at all, Stiles?”“I told you- I'm here because you’re here.”She raises a brow at him because that answer seems all wrong.“Fine, Danny text me. Said you were here alone.”Lydia huffs, “Of course.”Because Stiles always has to be worried about something awful happening to her. It can never be simple. They can never be normal teenagers. There always has to be something ruiningeverything.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the vast majority of this right after season 5 ended, so that’s when it takes place. The idea for this came from how the characters acted like Eichen never happened after 5.16 (which made no sense) and that the show never has any real consequences in the human world for all of the supernatural things that happen (which is nice at times, but I feel like it also makes no sense). I also wanted to explore more of Lydia’s backstory of why she was who she was at the beginning of the show versus now. 
> 
> This is 3 parts and I’ll update soon- really soon if people want me to. I am working on updates for my other stories but I’m a little stuck and since this is basically done, I thought I'd go ahead and post this. Let me know what you think!

“Mind if I join you?”

Lydia jumps at the whispered voice so close to her ear, whipping around around on the barstool to find amber eyes looking down at her, an unreadable expression behind them. 

“Stiles!” she nearly screeches in excitement at the sight of him, a huge grin spreading across her face.

“Lydia!” he calls back to her, laughing as he mimics her drunken happiness. He stumbles when she suddenly throws her arms around his neck and winces when he gets a whiff of the vodka on her breath. “Wow, holy alcohol…”

She giggles loudly, pulling back. “You need a drink. They have really good drinks.”

Stiles eyes Lydia strangely, because she just _giggled_ , and steps closer to her. “Oh, do they?”

“Well, I mean it’s just soda and vodka I think. But it’s the best.” She beams at him and raises her hand, to call over the bartender.

“You know, I think I’m good,” he assures her, immediately taking hold of her hand and bringing it back down on the bar.

“You’re not gonna drink?” she pouts. “But you’re at the bar.”

“‘Cuz you’re at the bar.”

“Oh,” she breathes, eyeing him curiously. She’s spent so much time scrutinizing everything he says and does lately but it’s too hard when everything seems kind of hazy and the music is so loud.

Her eyes drift toward the packed dance floor of their own accord, an idea taking hold. “Then you should dance with me!”

Stiles laughs at the suggestion, even if he is definitely tempted when she leans in closer, almost suggestively if he didn’t know any better. “No offense, Lydia, but I’m not sure you could even stand on your own right now, let alone attempt to sway to the beat of this abominable techno.”

“I’m not that drunk,” she snaps, scowling at his rejection and judgement. “So you’re really not gonna drink or dance?”

He shakes his head, a hint of a smirk on his lips at her irritation.

“Do you understand the point of a club at all, Stiles?”

He shrugs. “I told you. I’m here because you’re here.”

She raises a brow at him because that answer seems all wrong.

“Fine, Danny text me.” He nods over across the bar to where Lydia can see Danny and a few of the guys from the lacrosses team huddled together doing shots. “Said you were here alone.”

Lydia huffs, “Of course.” 

Because he always has to be worried about something awful happening to her. It can never be simple. They can never be normal teenagers. There always has to be something ruining _everything_.

Suddenly beyond annoyed, she yanks her hand away from his - she hadn’t realized they were even holding hands - and waves over the bartender. 

“You know, it’s perfectly normal for someone our age to drink. I’m not being an idiot. I’m not here getting trashed.”

“I never said you were,” he points out, furrowing his brow at her as the bartender refills her glass.

“Well then why are you here? Not everything is a rescue mission. I don’t need you to run in here and save me,” she bites, attacking him seemingly out of nowhere. “I’m _fine_.”

“I know that,” Stiles goes somber at her words, watching her carefully as he can’t help but remember an actual rescue mission from not so long ago.

Lydia takes a couple of sips from her drink. It’s stronger than the last one and burns her throat as she swallows it.

“And also, could someone please explain to me why the hell everyone is always texting you about me? Nobody ever texts me about you.” She scowls at her drink, swirling it with her straw as she avoids eye contact. “Like everyone knows you’d drop everything to come save drunk Lydia from the big bad bar, but _me?_ Oh, no. No one would ever believe I’d drop everything for you.”

The bass of the music is pounding but it’s drowned out by her words hanging in the air between them. She can feel his gaze burning into the side of her face, studying her, but he stays silent. 

She downs the rest of her drink.

“I guess it makes sense though,” she shrugs to herself, bitterly resigned. “You have Scott, and if there were ever a time he couldn’t be there then there’s always Malia, and if something were serious enough that we were that far down the intrinsic list of your emergency contacts, your dad would get a call. Outside of you, I don’t know who anyone would text about me.”

“Lydia…”

She chances a glance up at him to see his eyes watery and soft, his mouth open as if he wants to say something but can’t decide what. She quickly looks away. “I think I need another drink.”

“I really don’t think you do,” Stiles speaks up, his voice thicker than it should be. “Let me take you home.”

“Don’t want to go home.”

“Then we’ll go somewhere else,” he offers, reaching out and laying his hand gently on her shoulder. “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”

She looks at him skeptically but his eyes are warm and pleading and it’s Stiles, so she finds herself giving in pretty easily. “Okay.”

She leaves some cash on the bar and pushes herself up from the high stool only to stumble as she tries to stand. Arms quickly catch her before she hits the ground and suddenly she’s dissolving into laughter as she clings to her safety net.

“Oh my god,” Stiles mutters, helplessly smiling to himself and tightening his hold on her on her as the tension between them breaks with her laughter. “Are you sure you’re not wasted?”

“I’m not!” she protests and continues to giggle, clinging to him as they head for the exit. “I just haven’t stood at all since I started drinking. Also, I think I need fresh air.”

“And maybe some food would be good?”

“Oh, _yes!_ Food!”

Stiles snorts at her as he pushes open the door and leads her out into the cool night air.

“Hey, don’t laugh at me,” she fake pouts, letting him guide her across the parking lot. “It’s not my fault my tolerance to alcohol is so much lower than it used to be. We never, ever drink since the vast majority of our friends heal too fast to even begin to feel the effects of alcohol.”

“Oh, the plight of the unsupernatural in Beacon Hills.”

“Hey, I’m supernatural,” she points out, opening the door of the Jeep and starting to crawl inside. “I just can’t heal.”

His face falls. “Believe me, Lydia, I’m aware of that,” he mutters mostly to himself as he closes the door behind her, before rounding the Jeep to get in the driver’s side.

They pull out of the parking lot and Lydia fusses with the radio, unconcerned with where they are headed- wherever Stiles wants to go is fine with her. Everything on the radio is awful but she knows where he keeps his CDs tucked away in the glove compartment and she heads straight for them without asking. She knows he won’t mind.

“Hey Lydia? What do you want?”

She looks over at him with a furrowed brow before realizing where they are. In a drive thru, the next car up to order. She crinkles her nose. “Fast food?”

He rolls his eyes. “We’re under age and you’re at minimum quite tipsy, bordering on mildly drunk. I can’t take you inside anywhere right now. So it’s either this or we go to a gas station and I go in to get us-“

“Fine,” she cuts him off with a huff. “This is fine.”

He smirks at her. “Good. So what do you want?”

She looks at him blankly and shrugs.

“I could just get us some fries and cokes? That sound good?”

“ _Diet_ coke.”

He nods, rolling his eyes again.

Within minutes they are driving down the streets of Beacon Hills, a bag of fries between them on the center console.

“I never eat fries,” Lydia comments as she grabs another hand full. “They’re so bad for you.”

“They are _terrible_ for you,” Stiles agrees with his mouth full. “I never really eat them anymore either in solidarity with my dad, but they’re so good.”

She takes a sip of her drink, nodding in agreement. “They are _so_ good.” 

Eventually the food starts to disappear and Lydia digs back into the glove compartment, picking out a CD for them to listen to. The songs are slow and they’re a bit sad but it fits her mood. She slides it in and then busies herself with cranking down the window, letting cool night air into the tiny space of the Jeep.

“So where are we going now?”

Lydia looks over at him as she settles back in the seat. “Maybe we could just drive for a little bit?”

He nods, smiling softly at the way her hair shifts from the breeze and the street lights dance across her face. “Okay.”

Turning up the music, he continues to drive aimlessly though their small town. Eventually he gets sick of the stop signs and red lights and makes his way to the highway. He doesn’t want to have to take her home yet and somehow he knows that she doesn’t want him to either. 

They don’t really talk as they drive but it feels comfortable just being together. He notices how Lydia bounces her head just the slightest to the music and he can hear her humming along when it gets to the quieter parts.

He’s not sure how far they’ve gone when she leans against the door, her face turned toward the open window. The last couple songs on the CD play out and she goes quiet. He smiles to himself, convinced she’s fallen asleep. Reaching over, he turns off the stereo before the CD starts over and pulls off into a rest area to turn around.

Lydia shifts at the lengthening silence broken only by the clicking of the Jeep’s turn signal and turns toward him, her eyes wide awake and watery with something heavier than sleep. She reaches for his wrist on the gear shift as he pulls into the rest area, her fingers shaky against his skin.

The contact throws him, truthfully her whole shift in demeanor does, so even though he means to turn around in the empty parking lot and head back to Beacon Hills, he doesn’t. Instead he quietly parks the Jeep and intertwines their fingers the second he turns the engine off.

She remains silent as she takes his hand and wraps it in both of hers, pulling it into her lap.

He waits for her to speak and can only watch completely transfixed as Lydia fumbles with his fingers, studies his chewed down nails, and carefully rubs her thumb across the skin of his palm.

“I think I had a panic attack today,” her whisper breaks the silence, sounding somehow far away. “Everything felt like it was crushing down on me. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my whole body and I couldn’t get myself to take a deep breath no matter how hard I tried. The whole world felt like it was tilting and spinning around me but I couldn’t stop it.”

“Sounds like a panic attack to me.” He leans closer across the console, frowning. “I didn’t know you ever had those.”

“I don’t. Not really. I mean, I had one when I was a kid but I never told anyone,” she admits, glancing over at him through shining eyes before looking away just as quickly. “The night before fourth grade started— I’d been dreading going back to school all summer because I just _knew_ it was going to be another year without any friends. I didn’t fit in with anyone; they barely noticed I was even there. My parents didn’t really either since they were always too busy fighting. I felt invisible everywhere. Like I didn’t matter at all.”

Stiles squeezes her hand, encouraging her to continue while completely captivated by her rare vulnerability.

“So that night, I couldn’t fall asleep because I couldn’t turn my mind off, I was so worried about school the next day. Eventually, my parents must have assumed I’d fallen asleep because they started screaming all these awful things at each other and I heard all of it. I don’t know what happened but suddenly it was like I couldn’t breathe. My heart was pounding so fast and I was so dizzy I couldn’t even move. It felt like I was going to be trapped there forever, stuck in that moment where everything was so horrible. I realized then that _something_ had to change, that I had to make it change, and my mind just started racing with all of these plans. I thought and overthought nearly every detail of my life going forward and eventually I felt like I could breathe again.

“That’s when I decided I wasn’t going to be the boring, brainiac anymore — I wouldn’t let anyone see how smart I really was. I was going to act like the popular girls did; start dressing like them, too. Then someone would _have_ to notice me. Of course, I would still get the best grades in class and keep taking extra work when I could find a way to hide it, I was too smart to let myself destroy my own potential. I decided then that I would graduate early, at least by the end of junior year, and I wouldn’t tell anyone at school about it before I left.”

A tear drips onto the back of his hand where she holds it in her lap. Dazedly, she rubs it into his skin as she continues on, her voice barely a whisper.

“I’d just be gone one day. Off to college on the other side of the country. I’d never set foot in Beacon Hills or talk to anyone from here ever again.”

“Lydia,” he shakily breathes her name, unable to keep quiet any longer. He blinks back the wetness from his eyes and brings his free hand up to push her hair behind her ear and cup her cheek. “If that would have happened, if you had just disappeared forever, I- _God, Lydia…_ ” He trails off and shakes his head at her. “You weren’t invisible— Not to me. You never were.”

She presses her lips together, blinking back tears at the ferocity of his words and the look in his eyes.

“We weren’t even really friends back then but I noticed you. I remember exactly the way you were in third grade and I always wondered why you changed. I missed the real you,” he tells her adamantly, fire in his eyes as they dart between hers. “You know how unbelievably smart you were - are - but you were so _caring_. You cared about everything and everyone so much back then. The way that you do now even though you still try to hide it.”

“Stiles…”

“I would have wondered about you forever. In the back of my mind, I would have always wondered about you.”

Taking a shaky breath, she lets her eyes fall shut and leans into his touch, overwhelmed. His words feel like too much, hit too close, but she knows he means everything he says. Stiles has somehow always known her in a way she can’t explain logically but has always felt real, even when she used to force herself to deny it.

Just like she knows she doesn’t have to explain to him why she didn’t leave Beacon Hills at the end of junior year; why she stuck around to take a couple measly classes when she could already be off acing her freshman year of college. She knows Stiles understands how everything is different now without her having to say it out loud.

“You know, it was because of you, actually, that I figured out what happened that night was a panic attack,” she tells him after she gathers herself enough to speak again. “I overheard you talking to a teacher after you had one at school. You were explaining how it felt and everything you said just clicked.”

“My mom was diagnosed the summer before fourth grade. I had panic attacks all the time back then.”

Her lips fall into a frown, her heart going out to him. She’d had only two of her own and been witness to his once and all three of those experiences shook her to her core. She can’t bring herself to think about him suffering through so many more of them. She brings his hand that she won’t let go of up, pressing her lips against their intertwined fingers.

His pulse quickens at the simple touch. When she brings his hand away from her lips and lifts her eyes to his, he carefully presses her. “So you had one today?”

She barely nods, swallowing roughly. “ I, um… I finally read all the responses I’ve gotten on my college applications.”

For a moment he falters because it’s been so long since any of them talked about what’s going to happen after high school and he has no idea where she stands on the vision anymore. Hell, he doesn’t really know what he thinks about it anymore either. “And?”

“I didn’t get in.”

His stomach drops. “To Standford?”

“To MIT, Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia. _Sincerest regrets_ across the board.”

“Oh,” he breathes, shock and confusion twisting his features, partially because he didn’t even know she was applying to any of those places in the first place but mostly because there’s no way that can be right.

“I don’t know if I would have actually gone to any of those schools,” she amends in a rush, letting go of his hands for the first time to fidget with her own fingers. “I just- I wanted to know if I could have made it in. I needed to know if I was smart enough to; if all my work was enough. It was my plan, you know? Since the beginning of fourth grade, through my parents’ civil war of a divorce and spending so long acting like a vapid ditz so that people at school would acknowledge my existence, having this plan in the back of mind is what got me through it. But I couldn’t even…”

Stiles heartbreaks for her as he watches her trail off, her bottom lip trembling, yet he still feels like he must be missing something. “But how is that even possible? Those schools should be falling over themselves trying to get you to pick them. Your SAT scores were a few points from perfect and your grades—“

“It doesn’t matter,” she quietly cuts him off. “None of it does now that I’ve been institutionalized and diagnosed with psychosis severe enough that I had to have trepanation performed on me.”

“Wait, wait, wait– _That’s_ why you didn’t get in?” he hisses incredulously, indignation flaring in his chest. “That’s bullshit! They can’t do that—“

“They can do whatever they want,” she tells him in as firmly as she can manage, “and I don’t blame them. On top of everything that’s happened this year, I also have over a years worth of disastrous sessions with Morel on my record, along with absolutely no extra-curricular activities other than a well documented history of showing up at violent crime scenes, and a beyond spotty attendance record due to a stay at the local insane asylum and a myriad of other incidents that I can’t offer them any explanation for. I wouldn’t let me in either. I’m too much of a risk.”

“You can’t really believe that.“

“It’s the truth. Now all there is left to do is wait for my rejection from Stanford. Let that plan get ruined too,” she concludes shakily. She tries to blink back the tears gathering in her eyes but ends up sending them falling down her cheeks instead. “I’m never going to get out of here.”

“That’s not true! You’re going to go study math and win a Fields Medal and -“

“No, Stiles. I’m not. That’s- That’s not possible anymore. Not after after everything. I’m going to be in Beacon Hills with the Nemeton and the supernatural for the rest of my life.” She deteriorates quickly into a mess of tears and shaking limbs, barely able to hold herself together as she looks desperately to Stiles. “I- I’m going to be stuck here alone.”

He reaches out to her instantly, taking her face in his hands and forcing her to focus on him. “Never, _ever_ will I let that happen. We’ll figure something out, okay? If you don’t get in to Stanford, which I think would be fucking _ridiculous_ , then we’ll figure it out. I promise you're still going to write an insane mathematical theorem that wins you a Fields Medal, even if the path to it has to shift a bit.”

_“Stiles-“_

“Hey, hey,” he coos, wrapping his arms around her trembling body and pulling her into him, meeting her halfway between their seats. “It’s all going to work out, okay? You’re going to be fine. We’ll get through this.”

Pressing her face into the warmth of his neck, she can’t seem to do anything but cling to him as she cries herself out, her panic from earlier that day threatening to rise back up and over take her again. But as Stiles rubs her back and whispers words of comfort against her hair, she slowly gets a hold of herself. 

Eventually, she pulls herself together, her tears slowing and her breath evening out. 

Stiles doesn’t let her go though, won’t stop his palm trailing rhythmically across her back.

It’s a bit impulsive when she kisses his throat then, her lips pressing against his skin where it’s damp and salty with her tears. Really though, she does it because it feels right, like something she needs to do now and has been wanting to do for way too long. She feels his Adam’s apple bob and his heartbeat pick up before she pulls her lips from his skin. 

Leaning back, she moves just enough to see his amber eyes watching at her with rapt curiosity, his mouth hanging open. She wants to kiss his lips so badly, wants to do much more than that actually. She’s a mess though and she’d been drinking earlier, things she doesn’t want Stiles to think have anything to do with it which he would because he’s _Stiles_ and he over analyzes everything.

So she leans back a little further, back into her seat, and Stiles reluctantly releases his hold on her as he tries to calm his own racing heart. 

Before he can pull away completely though, she grabs his hand to stop him. “Stiles?”

He squeezes her hand and meets her gaze with an intensity shining in his eyes that grounds her.

“Thank you,” she whisper him with a small, sad smile. “I don’t think I say that enough to you, or ever really. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Well, I don’t know what I’d do without you either, so…” he trails off with a shrug, mirroring her small smile. He studies her carefully, eyes sweeping across her features before he slowly and purposefully leans forward to press a kiss her cheek. He hears the way her breath hitches and his smile loses it’s hint of sadness when he pulls back again. “We’ll figure things out.”

She sighs and shakes her head at him fondly, trying to get her breathing under control again. “Where did all that trademark Stilinski anxiety go?”

“Oh, it’s still there, believe me. I just don’t think there’s anything to be anxious about. Not with your future.”

Her heart warms at his words, his ever enduring confidence in her infectiously making her suddenly a bit more optimistic herself.

“You want to go home?”

She hesitates before shaking her head. “Maybe we could drive a little bit longer?”

The corner of his mouth quirks up at her softly and he nods in answer. Then he turns the ignition and restarts the CD in the console before heading back toward the highway.

Lydia curls up in the passenger seat again but this time she faces Stiles, her small hand fitting around his wrist over the gear shift once again. She listens to the quiet hum of the music and focuses on the thrum of Stiles’s pulse under her finger tips and never wants to let go, keeps her grasp on him steady for miles and miles, even as her eyelids grow heavy and she slowly drifts off to dreams of a future she’s too scared to hope for.

 

———

 

The letter from Stanford is waiting on the kitchen counter when she gets home from school along a note from her mother to call her with the good news after she’s opened it.

Her heart pounds as her fingers glance the envelope with the printed seal in the corner.

The last chance she has to go to college, the last school she’s waiting to hear from. 

Anxiety floods her veins the longer she stands over it, staring it down as if willing it to be what she wants and needs it to be. She can feel panic building and it threatens to over take her because she knows this could ruin everything.

She refuses to lose it though. She will not be this weak.

With a huff and a roll of her eyes, she forces herself to grab the envelope up and rip it open, eyes quickly skimming across the letter inside.

_Dear Ms. Martin,_

_We regret to inform you that we will not…_

Her heart drops, breath choking in her throat and the world fading out around her for a brief moment.

When she realizes herself again, she’s crumpled the letter into a little ball in her hands, her whole body shaking as the news settles in.

This can’t be happening. It just _can’t_.

Striding over to the trash, she quickly throws the offending letter away, getting rid of the awful thing as quickly as she can. She doesn’t even have to think about what she does next, her feet simply carry her out of the kitchen, through the front door, and right back to her car.

All she knows is she has to get to Stiles. He’s the only one who knows about any of this. The only one who understands.

He said they’d figure it. They’d get through this if it happened.

Well she’s going to need him to figure this out for her because she can’t.

The drive to his house only takes a few minutes and she bounds to the door as quickly as she can. After only a couple knocks, it swings open to reveal the sheriff standing there, absolutely beaming.

“Lydia!” he laughs out her name as he rushes forward to pull her into a fatherly hug, completely oblivious to her unsteadiness. “Did you hear the good news?”

Her brow furrows at the sheriff when he pulls back. “Good news?”

“My boy got in to Stanford. _Stanford!_ ”

For a second it’s like she can’t breath. “He- He did?”

“He did!” 

He’s grinning like an idiot, too wrapped up in his own joy to notice the sheer heartbreak in her eyes. She’s glad about that though because it gives her the chance to collect herself and force herself to smile.

_Stiles is going to leave her._

“I always knew he was smart enough but you know how he gets, what with the sarcasm and the ADD-“

“Thanks, dad.” Stiles’s voice cuts in from inside, getting louder as he approaches them. “Are we just pontificating on my flaws to everyone who comes to the door now, or is this a special occasion?” He reaches his father’s side and stops at the sight of the banshee, a hesitant smile curling his lips as he tries to read her.

“Hey, you’re the one that once wrote an essay about the history of the male circumcision on a test in your _Economics_ class.”

Lydia lets out a strained laugh, digging her hands into the pockets of her jeans anxiously.

Stiles shrugs as he steps closer to the doorway, eyes only on Lydia. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter now.”

She meets his gaze and forces a smile. “You got in to Stanford.”

He nods, still unsure of her reaction. “I did.”

“He did.” The sheriff repeats proudly, clapping him on the back.

“But I don’t know if I’m going to go there yet,” Stiles quickly adds, stepping closer to her and starting to ramble. “I mean, I was thinking I might want to work in law enforcement in some way and I don’t know if that’s really-“

She knows what he’s doing. He’s leaving an out for himself incase she doesn’t get in, so he can follow her wherever she goes because of the other night and how unbelievably weak she’d been.

For some reason in that moment all she can think of is the tunnels under Eichen, when she yelled at him with everything she had to run and Parrish had to drag him away when he didn’t budge an inch from her. She knows he’ll never let himself go to Stanford if she’s not going to be there too. 

Well, she’s not going to let him ruin this opportunity for himself. Not because of her.

“Me too,” she blurts, effectively cutting off his rambling. “I mean, I got in. To Stanford. That’s what I was coming over to tell you.”

Stiles’s hesitant smile grows genuine, the tension visibly leaving his shoulders in relief. “Really?”

Lydia purses her lips into a watery smile and barely nods once before he’s stepping forward and wrapping her up in his arms. She feels absolutely sick as she hugs him back, pressing her forehead against the front of his t-shirt and trying to keep herself calm.

The sheriff turns suddenly sentimental as he looks between his son and the banshee. “Well, that decides it. I’m going to change out of my uniform and then we are all going out for dinner to celebrate.”

Her stomach clenches with panic at the suggestion and she quickly pulls out of Stiles arms, looking over at the sheriff with what she hopes portrays a natural expression of slight regret. “That sounds really great but I can’t. Still have to go find my mom and tell her the news.”

Stiles’s eyes soften. “You came here first?”

“Of course.”

God, she feels like an awful person. _An awful, awful person._

“Well then I guess it’s just the Stilinski men tonight,” the sheriff amends his earlier plan before stepping forward to hug the banshee again. “Congratulations, Lydia.”

She can’t really formulate a response before he leaves because she feels almost as awful for lying to the sheriff as she does for lying to Stiles.

Lydia takes a step back, crossing her arms over her chest to stop herself from fidgeting. “You should have told me you were applying there.”

Stiles simply shakes his head. “I didn’t tell anyone I was, not even Scott. I mean, I never thought I would actually get in.”

“You always underestimate yourself,” she rolls her eyes fondly, because it’s such a Stiles thing to do that she can’t help it. “You’re the smartest person I know. I could have told you that you’d get in if I’d known that’s what you wanted.”

“I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“Well then if you were so convinced you couldn’t get in, why did you apply?”

He shrugs shyly. “I knew that’s where you were going to go. I had to try.”

She shakes her head at him, her anxiety rising. “Stiles…”

“Lydia, I just got into Stanford.,” he repeats to her in absolute disbelief.

She smiles up at him and she doesn’t have to force it this time because she is happy for him. Impulsively, she steps forward and hugs him again. “I’m really proud of you, Stiles.”

He wraps his arms around her tight and presses his face against her hair, his lips lingering near her ear. “I’m so proud of you, too.”

She bites her lip hard, focusing all her energy on keeping her breathing even, her heartbeat calm.

“I told you it would work out.”

She pulls back, avoiding his gaze because she has to. “I should go. Your dad will be ready soon.”

He nods and reluctantly lets her go. “Text me later? We can talk about next year, start figuring out what is near the dorms or if we’re close enough to Scott that you, me, and him could all get an apartment-“

She lets out a nervous laugh and takes a step back. “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself?”

“Lydia, I’m a planner. You know this and you’ll have another four years to grow to appreciate it.”

She rolls her eyes at him and tries to swallow the bile she can feel in the back of her throat. “Looking forward to it.”

He is absolutely beaming at her before she finally allows herself to turn around. Heart is pounding with nerves, she gets back in her car and drives away as quickly as she can, knowing Stiles is watching her until she turns onto another street.

Her mind is blank the whole way home, too overwrought with racing thoughts and anxiety to focus on anything. She pulls into her driveway and turns off the car and simply sits there, letting the last hour of her life play over in her mind.

Slowly her bottom lip starts to quiver, tears gathering in her eyes.

It occurs to her then that she’s never lied to Stiles before. 

_Never, ever, ever._

Tears drip down her cheeks and she drops her forehead against the steering wheel, her knuckles white as she grasps it tight.

What a stupid lie to tell. There’s no way she’ll ever get out of this. At some point, he’ll know she lied right to his face. To his dad, too.

But she couldn’t let him pass up an opportunity like Stanford because her life is suddenly crumbling to pieces.

God, she wishes it was just the truth.

Dissolving into sobs she can feel the panic crawling through her veins and catching in her throat.

No college. No pack. 

No _Stiles_.

The whole world feels like it is spinning out of control all around her and she’s stuck, her whole body shaking against the force of it all. 

She can’t move, she can’t breathe. All she can do is panic.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone that left kudos and those who commented. Any feedback on this is really appreciated! Hope you enjoy the next chapter.

The best course of action, Lydia decides, is avoidance. 

Avoid school and studying and all reminders of her impending college-free future. Avoid the pack and their emotion sniffing noses and lie detecting ears. Avoid Stiles and his heartfelt plans and eager eyes.

Logically she knows it won’t solve anything, knows it will probably make everything worse actually. Still, she can’t bring herself to face it all yet. 

So really she has no choice but to completely bail on the pack for spring break, or at least that’s what she tells herself. It’s not like they had anything planned specifically but not having plans was kind of the whole the point. They all decided weeks ago that their last spring break would be an entire week of just being normal teenagers together, enjoying their adolescence without a supernatural threat breathing down their necks. She’d been looking forward to it for weeks.

Instead she goes to visit her dad in Seattle, simply because it’s the only place she can think to go on such short notice that’s far enough away that Stiles wouldn’t insist on making the whole pack take a road trip to in the Jeep. Her mom is predictably skeptical about the whole thing, especially after she tells her the truth about Stanford and begs her to let her keep it a secret until she can figure out what she’s going to do. Lydia insists it will all be _fine_ and she’s _absolutely fine_ , too desperate to get away from Beacon Hills to really think it all through.

She sees now that she should have just stayed in home. Facing up to everything would have been a hell of a lot easier.

“Lydia…”

Resolutely ignoring her father, she balls her few scattered pieces of clothing up and shoves them back into her suitcase.

“Lydia, I’m talking to you.”

Zipping up her bag, she rapidly scans the room for the rest of her things.

Footsteps pound across the room and fingers grab her wrist tight. “Lydia Elise Martin-“

“Don’t touch me,” she hisses ripping her arm from her father’s grasp and finally meeting his eyes with a glare.

“Lydia,” he sighs, shaking his head at her in exasperation. “This is ridiculous. You’re not leaving! You’ve barely been here a day-“

“I don’t care!” she bellows, hurrying around the guest bed to swipe her phone up off the side table. “I can’t stand to stay here another minute.”

“You’re not leaving,” he repeats, his voice stern in warning.

She ignores him and picks up her purse from off the floor.

“ _Lydia._ Lydia, you still have to listen to me. I’m still your father!”

“No, you’re not!” she screeches, turning on him with fire in her eyes.

“I am, Lydia. Whether you like it or not, I’m your father. I’m the adult. And just because you don’t agree with my choices-“

“That’s not-“ she starts to argue back before stopping herself, her eyes suddenly filling with angry tears she refuses to let fall. “You really think this is about her? About your precious fiancé?”

“What the hell else could it be about? You meet her and then you storm out-“

“It’s not about her, it’s-“ she takes a deep breath and blinks back her tears, looking at her father with disappointment shining in her eyes. “I almost died, Dad. Twice. And where were you?”

Her father’s eyes soften, speechless at the simple question.

“You didn’t even call, you didn’t…” she sniffles and shakes her head at him. “You just stayed here. You got engaged and you couldn’t even tell me about it before you introduced her.”

She doesn’t wait for him to try to come up with a response, just finishes up the last of her packing and pulls her jacket over her shoulders.

Her father steps in the doorway before she can get past him, refusing to move as he blocks the way out. “Look, Lydia, sometimes people make mistakes. They let things get away from them and all of the sudden they are somewhere they never expected. I never expected things would be like this between us. Just like I’m sure you never expected things would be like they are for you right now.”

She furrows her brow at him, her heartbeat picking. “What does that mean?”

“It means your mother told me you didn’t get in to college and I know how hard that must be for you. But lashing out at me isn’t going to fix your failures-“

A few tears fall loose as she shakes her head at him in disbelief. “Mom was right. This was a mistake,” she mutters as she steps around him and this time he lets her. She hesitates though, turning to level him with green eyes resigned and disappointed, “You know, you could have just apologized.” 

A taxi is waiting for her when she stomps outside into the misty rain and she takes it straight to the airport. She’s almost there when her phone suddenly rings, _Dad_ flashing across the screen without a photo to accompany the word. She nearly gives in, about to answer but it goes silent too quickly with no voicemail and no message left behind. It doesn’t ring again.

It’s hours before the next flight to Beacon Hills so she sets herself up in an uncomfortable chair in the correct terminal amongst the other travelers. 

It’s late but she can’t imagine being able to sleep at all, too angry and upset to turn down her thoughts enough. So instead she pulls out her book on the Reimann hypothesis and tries not to think about the fact that all of her extensive knowledge on the subject might actually turn out to be useless. 

It’s not long before her phone dings with a message from Stiles.

_missed you at the beach today_

The simple text is accompanied by a picture of Scott and Stiles buried up their necks in the sand, grinning like idiots.

She laughs to herself, rolling her eyes fondly at those stupid boys.

Her fingers hover over the screen to write back but for some reason she can’t think of anything to say. If she’s honest with herself, what she really wants to do is call and tell him everything that happened and how awful and idiotic this whole trip has been. That’s not who she is though despite her little lapse of vulnerability the other night, not to mention how unbelievably unfair would it be to unload on him after she blatantly lied to his face and then spent the last week noncommittally fielding texts about all his plans for them next year.

To her absolute horror she realizes that she’s about to cry so she quickly closes out the message and shoves her phone back in her purse, focusing on nothing but her book until her flight gets called over the intercom.

 

——

 

The sun is high in the sky when she parks her car on the side of the road, her luggage still stuffed in the trunk of her car. Already she can feel her resolve weakening as her eyes trail over the familiar metal letters on the gate, _Eichen House_ looming in front of her like a living nightmare. She was never supposed to set foot inside that building again yet here she is, ready to head right back into a place that took all of the pack’s efforts to break her out of.

It might be absolutely insane but it feels like something she has to do, and though she could lie to herself and say it’s for a myriad of different reasons, she knows it’s because she needs help. She’s never felt more strangled by the supernatural than she does now with her life derailing all around her and the only person who might have gone through the exact same thing, the only other banshee she’s ever met, is locked away inside this terrible place.

The attendant at the front desk isn’t the creep that tried to kill her, thank god, and doesn’t object to her request to see Meredith, though he seems annoyed to have to get up and actually take her there.

The walk through the hallways, passing by all those tiny cells, sickens and unnerves her terribly but not because it’s familiar journey. No, she doesn’t remember any part of how she ended up in her cell in the restricted area. What shakes her is all those faces peering out at her, a few of them curious and some threatening, but most of them blank; empty shells looking out at her from behind impenetrable glass.

The door to Meredith’s room clicks open and the attendant ushers her in. 

“You’ve got 30 minutes.”

The mechanical click of the door closing and locking behind her has Lydia absolutely panicking for a few horrific seconds before she can reassure herself that the attendant didn’t recognize her, didn’t care enough to try anything.

That’s when she turns to the other banshee, sitting with her eyes just as empty and unseeing as those faces that had gazed out at her; just as Lydia is sure hers were while she was trapped in here.

Carefully she settles herself on the bed next where the other banshee is sitting and staring at the floor.

“Hi Meredith.”

The silence continues, of course, and Lydia bites her lip hard. 

Instantly she feels so foolish for worrying about something as trivial as college. She knows this is the real worry. In the back of her mind, maybe she has been worried about this without even realizing it since the night Stiles and the rest of the pack saved her from this place. Maybe this is why she panics every time she thinks about her future and all her dreams being taken away, why she’s so scare of being stuck in Beacon Hills while everyone leaves her behind like they always do.

Lydia reaches out and takes the other girl’s hand in hers, gently squeezing it.

At some point, Meredith had a family. She went to school. She must have had friends.

Now she’s here. Like this.

_Alone._

It’s Lydia’s deepest and most secret fear. 

She doesn’t want to end up like this. She _can’t_.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her voice thick and rough. “I’m so sorry, Meredith.”

There are no words after that. She just holds Meredith’s hand as the seconds tick by. 

By the time the guard returns, she’s barely keeping herself together.

“I’ll come back,” Lydia promises fiercely before letting go of the banshee’s hand. “I promise, I’ll come back and see you again.”

The guard lets her past and she doesn’t wait for him to lead her back through the building, just rushes out of there as fast as her legs will take her.

 

——

 

The rest of the afternoon is spent fixing her hair and makeup with a level care and precision that used to be an everyday routine before werewolves and beasts and death overtook her life. It takes hours to achieve the perfection she deems necessary right now, but when she finally studies herself in her full length mirror, it feels somehow worth it.

Curled hair with a braided crown. Bright red lips and thick black lashes. Teasingly short skirt and towering stilettos.

It feels right, like the Lydia Martin she’s supposed to be. It feels like regaining some piece of herself she’s been missing for far too long.

Before she left for Seattle she’d heard rumors about a big spring break party, so with everything perfectly in place she decides on a whim to see if it’s still on. The second she turns on to the street packed with shitty starter cars and hears the distant buzz of bass music, she knows it’s still on.

There are too many eyes on her from the second she steps inside, some of them curious and some of them judging, and she tries her best to ignore all of them. It’s much easier once she’s downed a few shots.

“Lydia,” Danny grins at her as he nudges up to her side. “I thought you were out of town.”

“If you text Stiles with an update on my whereabouts, we’re no longer friends,” she threatens with a teasing smirk over a red plastic cup, though part of her kind of means it. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She finishes her cup and notices a few of the lacrosse players watching her from across the room.  
Smirking at them coyly, she reaches out and grabs a bottle for a refill.

“So I take it your vacation went well,” Danny observes sarcastically.

“Oh, it was just the trip of a lifetime.”

He scrutinizes her as he works on his own drink. “You don’t look like you were working on your tan.”

She shakes her head and the room seems to be tipping off balance already. “Went to Seattle.”

“Seattle?”

“Visiting dear old dad. _Huge_ mistake.”

“That sucks. My dad lives in Newport so I just spend the whole time at the beach whenever I’m forced to stay with him. The surfing makes it bearable and the surfers definitely help too,” he sighs in appreciation, before narrowing his eyes on the strawberry blonde. “But hey, Seattle should be perfect for you since you’re so obviously into that whole pale in plaid, surviving on coffee instead of sleep look.”

Lydia’s jaw drops. “Danny-“

“You’re not really going to try to deny it, are you?”

She presses her lips together, the hint of a smirk playing on her lips as her buzz starts to really kick in. “Whatever.”

Danny laughs out loud as she tips back her drink. “I knew it!”

“Just pour me another drink, Daniel. Or better yet, you could dance with me. Like old times, remember?”

“I remember that Jackson would never dance with you so you forced me to instead.”

“And you loved it,” she teases grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the mass of people by the stereo.

She’s a bit unsteady on her feet but Danny keeps her up right and she leans on him once they are hidden away in the crowd. They move together to the beat and it’s fun and easy and so normal being there with one of her oldest friends. Closing her eyes, she can almost pretend it’s freshman year again and everything about her life isn’t completely falling apart.

The bass pounds through the air and she can feel it reverberate through her body, rattling her still healing skull and giving her the beginnings of a headache.

Within minutes though it all starts to fade and the music blends into a constant hum as the alcohol catches up with her. She has to lean more and more into Danny as everything starts to spin, her mind going slowly numb. 

A few songs pass and a guy from the lacrosse team taps her on the shoulder to cut in and dance with Danny and another guy swoops her up before she can get away from the swarm of dancing teens. 

She vaguely recognizes him, knows he’s in her class, but beyond that he’s a complete stranger to her. She doesn’t even know his name but it doesn’t really matter. Actually it’s kind of nice.

This new boy is confident, doesn’t hesitate to hold her close and let his hands roam.

One song drifts into another and his lips brush against her neck.

It catches her off guard but after a moment she responds, tilting her head to give him access. It’s sloppy and rough but it’s not long before he’s wanting more, his lips finding hers.

He’s panting when he pulls back and nods toward the stairs and she finds herself easily agreeing, letting him pull her through the crowd.

It hits her then that this is one of the reasons why she came here tonight. She wants something familiar. She wants to be touched and distracted. She needs this meaningless boy to take her mind off all the things in her life that mean way too much for just a little while.

But as he presses her up against the wall and kisses her roughly, tugging at her hair, her mind doesn’t turn off like it used to with the other boys she’d used as distractions. Instead her thoughts multiply, ramping up and overwhelming her. She can’t focus on what’s happening because she suddenly very aware of the fact that she hasn’t slept with anyone, let alone _kissed_ someone, since Aiden; before he died and _Allison_ died and distractions suddenly felt like a waste of the little time she probably has.

She thinks of the wrecked look in Stiles’s eyes after she just barely kissed his neck the other night; thinks of him carefully kissing her cheek and how right it felt; thinks of the way his hands pressed firmly across her back when he held her.

Stiles who will be gone in a few months while she’s… she’s…

Fingers skim across the bare skin on her hip and she snaps back to reality, flinching and pushing against the stranger’s shoulders. “Wait…”

“Wait?” he repeats back to her, breathless and eyeing her strangely. “For what?” 

She doesn’t know what to say. She _needs_ this to be like it used to so badly right now but it’s just not the same anymore. Everything is different — _She’s_ different.

He leans back into her after a few beats pass awkwardly between them but she turns away sharply, avoiding his gaze and chewing her lip.

Scoffing, he shakes his head and steps back muttering a string of curses as he stomps away from her, the hum of the party turning into a roar when he throws open the door.

Alone in that dimly lit room, it takes everything Lydia has not to crumple in on herself. Blinking back tears that she refuses to let fall, she steps up to the mirror on the wall of whoever’s bedroom she’s in and appraises herself. It all seems so much different than it was just a couple of hours ago in her own bedroom, with her hair coming out of it’s braid, her eyes glassy and her dress shifted. She’s a complete mess and something harsh rises in her chest at every imperfection she sees.

Somehow she makes it back down the stairs without tripping on her heels. There are too many eyes on her again, knows all of them are judging her now, and no matter what she tells herself she can’t ignore them anymore.

Stumbling over to the kitchen table covered in an assortment of different bottles, Lydia decides to forgo the cup altogether and just swipes up a bottle for herself. She takes a long swig and turns on her heel, intent on finding somewhere she can be alone, when she slams straight into the broad chest of someone head on.

“Oh, shit! I’m so sor— _Lydia?_ “

She looks up and finds herself nearly eye to eye with Scott. Instantly, she knows what that means and her eyes dart around until they find him, already making his way through the crowd towards her with his brow furrowed.

Pointlessly, she turns again and attempts to get away but he’s on her before she even makes it two steps.

“Lydia?” Stiles calls her name in confusion as he gently wraps his fingers around her elbow. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in Seattle.”

She sighs and reluctantly turns to him, watching his eyes fill with concern as they take her in. “I was,” she explains plainly with an unconvincing shrug. “Now I’m here.”

His eyes narrow on her. “And you’re trashed.”

“Maybe,” she admits, her lower lip trembling.

His eyes instantly soften and the pad of his thumb subconsciously strokes her arm. “God, your dad is an _asshole_ , Lydia.”

“You don’t even know what happened,” she snaps back, not even sure why except something about Stiles just _knowing_ things about her and her life is pissing her off right now. “You’ve barely even met him.”

“I know enough to know it’s true. He treats you like-“

“I know how he treats me,” she cuts him off harshly, pulling her arm out of his grasp and stepping back. “I don’t need you to tell me.”

“Okay, okay.” He holds his hands up defensively but his voice is suddenly all soft and there are tears in her eyes, threatening to fall.

“Lydia-"

“Don’t, Stiles,” she grinds out when he tries to move closer at the sight of her glassy eyes, pushing him back and letting the bottle fall to the floor with a crash that rings out through the room.

Eyes turn toward them from every corner, but Lydia doesn’t care as her tears finally start to fall.

“You’re too nice to me all the time and — and you care too much when you _shouldn’t_ —“

He steps toward her again, eyes challenging and shoes crunching on broken glass. “Why? Why shouldn’t I be nice to you? Huh? Why shouldn’t I care?”

“I don’t deserve—“

“That’s literally the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard—“

“You can’t ruin your future for me! I won’t let you get stuck here too.”

“Stuck here? What are you talking about? What about—“ he abruptly stops his question before it can get out because suddenly the answer is so clear. _“Oh, Lydia…”_

Her heart breaks at the gentle regret in his eyes and her bottom lip quivers violently. “Just stay away from me, okay? I need you to stay away from me.”

Turning away quickly, she indiscriminately grabs another bottle from the table and pushes her way through the crowd of whispering teens and out the back of the house. Stumbling past the few people hanging around on the patio, she wanders across the backyard until she’s far enough away that all she can hear of the party is the constant rumble of bass from the music.

She lowers down on the grass and leans against the rough bark of a large tree, blinking against the tears now falling steadily down her damp cheeks. With trembling fingers she unscrews the cap from the bottle and takes a long swig, the liquid burning down her throat. It doesn’t help though, of course it doesn’t, and she feels like such an idiot — hates herself for behaving like such a stereotypical teenager when she’s prided herself on acting like an adult for so long.

All she wants is for things to be the way they are _supposed_ to be. This isn’t how her life was meant to end up.

She closes the bottle and lets it roll away from her in the grass as footstep approach from behind. She doesn’t have to look up to know it’s Stiles, keeps her gaze fixed on the ground in front of her as he comes to a hesitant stop a few feet away from her side.

He settles down on the grass but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t prod her or stare at her, doesn't seem to expect her to say anything either. He’s just there, selflessly caring and understanding like always. 

It breaks her.

Everything overwhelms her in that moment, all of it crushing down on her until she can barely breathe as she tries to hold back the sobs aching in her chest. Pressing her lips together tight, she turns away from him with her shoulders shaking and her tears falling too fast, stubbornly trying to hide from him even though she knows she can’t and knows deep down that she doesn’t want to.

Warm fingers trail across her back, his hand smoothing along her spine and giving her the warmth and comfort she so desperately needs. She can’t help the pathetic, whimpering cry that slips past her lips as she turns to find him suddenly right next to her, ready to wrap her in his arms.

Stiles doesn’t say anything while she cries into the warmth of his flannel for what feels like forever, just holds her close and keeps his hand moving steadily up and down the trembling muscles of her back.

Only when her tears slow and her breath relaxes does he pull back, his own eyes shining in the moonlight.

“Come on,” he gently coaxes, a melancholy smile quirking his lips. He gets to his feet and then helps her up as well, his fingers weaving together with hers. Wordlessly she follows him through the backyard, around the outside of the house, and down the street to where the Jeep is parked. He helps her inside but she stops him before he can close the door, tugging on his fingers before they get too far away.

She wants to say something to him, something important, but she can’t find the words, her lips pressed together as she stares into the warm amber of his eyes.

He seems to understand though, something silent passing between them as he runs his thumb across the back of her hand.

“You can stay at my house tonight if you want. My dad’s working the night shift.”

She doesn’t have to think before she nods in agreement, surprising herself with how relieved and thankful she is to know she’ll have a few more hours at his side. It’s only when his fingers slip away and he closes her door so he can jog around to the driver’s side that another feeling bubbles up as well, anxiety threatening to overwhelm her because she knows with all that time together they’ll have to talk at some point.

But then he’s sliding into the driver’s seat and giving her the most gentle, reassuring smile and she knows there’s nothing to be nervous about. Not when it’s her and Stiles.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really appreciate all the kudos and comments on this story! Hope you enjoy the last part!

Nuzzling against the pillow beneath her, Lydia inhales a familiar, comforting scent as she slowly stirs awake. Blinking groggily, she shifts and squints at the familiar posters and photos covering the walls of what she recognizes as Stiles’s bedroom just barely illuminated by the moonlight, though it takes her a moment to recall how she wound up there.

She remembers the silence of the drive to his house that shouldn’t have felt so easy and comfortable. Remembers him leading her to the kitchen with a hand on the small of her back before insisting she drink an entire bottle of water. Then he’d guided her upstairs to his room, pulling out a t-shirt and an old pair of sweatpants for her to wear, rambling on about nothing in particular as he then led her to his bathroom so she could change.

Her mouth curls up in sleepy amusement as she remembers the way his cheeks had turned all ruddy when he’d seen her in his clothes, though, ever the gentlemen, he refused to stare or comment before he grabbed up a pile of pajamas for himself and headed off to the bathroom himself.

She’d gotten into his bed to wait for him while he was changing, but she was beyond exhausted and the sheets smelled so good… She must have fallen asleep before he’d gotten back.

Turning over she expects to find him dozing on the other side of the bed but instead there’s only empty sheets and a missing pillow. Furrowing her brow, she sits up and looks around in confusion before she catches sight of something odd on the floor. Leaning over the side of the bed, she presses her lips together to hold back a laugh when she finds him sprawled on the carpet with a blanket haphazardly thrown across himself and a pillow wedged under his head.

After a moment, the sight of him like that doesn’t look so much amusing as it does adorable, so quintessentially Stiles that she finds herself moving before she can think to contemplate wether or not it’s a good idea.

Throwing back the covers from over herself, she silently slides out of bed and steps over him before carefully settling down on the carpet next to him. Reaching for his blanket, she tries to smooth it out as carefully as possible, laying it more completely over him before pulling some onto herself as well.

“Lydia?”

Her heart jumps when he whispers her name, whipping around to find him looking up at her in curiosity.

For some reason she feels suddenly nervous but tries to push it away, forcing herself to remain at least outwardly calm and composed as she lays down on the floor next to him and places her head on the corner of his pillow, leaving her so very close to him.

“You okay?”

She nods, just barely, as she gazes at him from just a few inches away. Her eyes trace the moles across his skin, take in the brightness of his whiskey-colored irises, note how they aren’t the least bit heavy with sleep. 

“You haven’t slept at all, haven’t you?”

He shrugs sheepishly. “I can’t sleep without my pillow.”

“You do realize this fluffy rectangle we’re both laying on right now is called a pillow, right?”

Rolling his eyes, the corner of his mouth quirks up at her as if it’s obvious. “This isn’t the right pillow though. The other one is what I always sleep with.”

“Oh.” She frowns, immediately moving to get up, intent on grabbing it for him. “You should have told me—“

“No, it’s fine,” He lays his hand against her side to keep her there next to him. “Really. You were fast asleep and I just… I wanted some time to think.”

She presses her lips together and nods in understanding but he doesn’t say anything more. Instead he lets his fingers linger over her waist, with a hesitant, questioning look in his eyes. Her heart races again inside her chest.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” she blurts out in a sharp whisper, her green eyes suddenly wet.

“It’s okay. I get it—“

Hastily she shakes her head, her voice growing stronger with how much she means every word. “I never lied to you before this. I never want to again. I won’t.”

A melancholy smile curls his lips. “I trust you.”

His simple words make her ache, the truth of them shining in his amber eyes. Absentmindedly she reaches out and trails her fingers across the front of his t-shirt and lets out a heavy breath. “I didn’t get in to Stanford. I didn’t get in anywhere,” she says the words to him out loud, finally, before biting her lip to keep herself in check.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers back, not in pity, but because he knows how much this meant to her. He moves his hand from her side and cups her cheek instead, smoothing his thumb along her skin. “It’s completely unfair. Maybe there’s an appeal process or—”

Gently, she shakes her head against his hold, cutting him off before he goes too far down that train of thought.

“Well have you looked into any other options?”

“Honestly, I haven’t looked into anything.”

“Are you telling me that _Lydia Martin_ hasn’t done any research?” he questions in faux disbelief, trying to make her smile. “I can’t believe it.”

She lifts her shoulder in a weak shrug. “Well since I’ve been doing pretty much everything I can to not think about this, research was the last thing on my to do list.”

His face falls, hating to see her so defeated, so unlike herself. “This isn’t the end, you know. You can still get into a good school, the kind you deserve to go to, and accomplish all the things you want to. I promise. It might require you to start at a smaller school first, but once you have a couple of semesters of smooth sailing on your transcripts, all the things they thought were red flags will seem as utterly ridiculous to any school as they already are. Stanford or anywhere else you want to go to will be begging you to chose them for your degree and for all the groundbreaking work you’re going to do along the way.”

“But what if it’s not smooth sailing?” she asks barely above a whisper, giving voice to fears she’s never shared with anyone. “What if I’m always going to be in and out of fugue states and hospitals and mental institutions—“

“You won’t—“

“You don’t know that.” Her voice is harsher than she means and it betrays her, makes it clear how much she takes this to heart, lets him see right through to how terrified she really is. “I don’t want to end up like Meredith, Stiles. Or my grandmother. Alone and out of my mind. I don’t want this.”

“Hey…” he breathes soothingly, moving closer and slipping his hand back into her hair.

She closes her eyes and presses her forehead to his, taking a few slow, shaky breaths as he whispers reassurances to her. 

“You’ll always have me looking out for you, okay? I’ll be there to fight with you against all the supernatural shit that comes at us and keep you grounded so you never get lost in your mind again. I mean, you’re my anchor, right? Maybe that means I could be yours too.”

“You already are, Stiles,” she easily affirms, feeling not for the first time like the boy in front of her is her fixed point— the only thing she can count on when everything else in her life is a wreck. “You’re my anchor.”

A warm smile tugs at his lips, his eyes full as they stare into hers.

“But I don’t want things to be worse for you because you’re tied to me. I knew you were going to backtrack on going to Stanford if I told you I didn’t get in. You were already making excuses, giving yourself an out just incase.“

“That’s not what I was doing. Not at all. I was serious about wanting to go into law enforcement, not knowing if Stanford is the right fit.”

“Then why did that all go away the moment I lied and said I’d gotten in?” she counters, narrowing her gaze on him, unconvinced. “If that were true, you wouldn’t have been so quick to start planning every little detail about the next four years.”

He shrugs. “You’re not the only one that doesn’t want to be alone, Lyds. What do you think the whole big vision was all about? All that planning for all of us to stay together… I don’t want to get left behind either.”

“Oh.” She presses her lips together as she lets his words wash over her, relieved to realize she’s not the only one freaking out but also a bit surprised to hear this from Stiles of all people. She doesn’t understand how he can still be so oblivious to how important he is to everyone in the pack — to _her_. “I guess we better stick together then.”

His eyes are bright as he hums his agreement. “Sounds like the first step in a very solid plan.”

“And step two?”

“Step two we figure it out in the morning. We deserve sleep after coming up with a first step as amazing as that.”

She lets out a soft, watery laugh despite herself, rolling her eyes fondly. “Don’t you need your pillow first?”

“Nah, I think I’m good like this,” he retorts as his hand slides up her side and slips around her waist to pull her closer. It’s only after that it strikes him just how forward he’s being and how completely abnormal this kind of contact is for them and he abruptly freezes, his face heating up.

Lydia can practically hear his anxiety screaming out at her as he waits for her reaction and she finds herself grinning at his ruddy pink cheeks. Impulsively she decides to be a little forward herself, leaning into him and pressing her lips to the corner of his mouth in a chaste yet heady kiss. She lingers there, her heart thudding and soaring all at once, and lets out an unsteady breath against his lips when she finally pulls back.

Absolutely wrecked, Stiles swallows roughly as his gaze darts between her green eyes and her full lips until he rushes to close the few inches between them with a searing kiss of his own. His tongue brushes against her lips and she opens her mouth to him, letting him lead their movements as he tastes her and presses closer. 

“Lydia…” he breathes her name, somehow feeling simultaneously more shaken and more steady than he’s ever been in his life.

With her green eyes full and warm, she takes his hand and intertwines their fingers together tight. Then she carefully turns in his arms, facing away and pulling his hand with her until his arm is draped across her waist and hugging tight to her stomach, leaving them spooning on his moonlight drenched carpet.

Heart pounding, he hesitates there, wide eyed and overwhelmed as he thinks about 10 year plans and counting his fingers. But then she peaks back over her shoulder at him and his body curls around her almost instinctually, fitting against all the pieces and parts of her like a puzzle. His lips brush against her shoulder before he nuzzles her neck, his breath warm and ragged against her skin.

A sigh of content leaves her at the warmth of him all around her. “Night Stiles.”

He draws her impossibly closer, his breathing already evening out. “Night Lydia.”

 

———

 

Stiles’s crime board is overflowing as the late afternoon sun beats in through the window, the curtains swaying in the breeze. Silently sitting side by side on the edge of his bed, they stare up at it and contemplate the results of a days worth of research laid out before them.

“So,” he breaks the silence as gently as he can, tilting his head and watching her profile with rapt interest. “What do you think?”

“I think… there are a lot of options.” Lydia moves her focus from piece to piece, gaze narrowed in thought. “Something I definitely didn’t feel like there was twenty-four hours ago.”

“Well, which option do you think is best?”

“Which do you think?”

“I asked you first.”

Rolling her eyes at his childish retort is automatic at this point, but then she tries to find an answer, grasps for some response to the original question and she feels stuck and unsure, feelings she’s definitely not accustomed to. Pressing her lips together, she turns to find his amber eyes patiently observing her from a few inches away. 

“I don’t know.” He’s the only one she would ever admit that to, though her cheeks still burn at the whispered words.

He reaches out and takes her hand, his thumb smoothing across her palm. The movement is so natural that it occurs to him for the first time just how often they’ve held hands over the past few years, in a completely platonic way of course, but it’d become a part of their interactions so organically that he hadn’t even noticed. He notices it now though, maybe because it feels different with the kisses from last night hanging unspoken between them. Now even something as simple as holding hands, something that had become so normal between them, feels like so much more.

“I think you do,” he softly counters. “You just need to trust your instincts. You know what the right answer is. You always do.”

Chewing on her lip uneasily, she drops her gaze to their hands and follows the movement of his thumb. “Maybe I don’t like the right answer this time.”

“Thinking about going to a school outside of the big vision, huh?” he questions lightly though he knows the answer already, especially when she bites her bottom lip. “It’s okay, Lydia. Really.”

“What about you, though? Where will you be?”

He shrugs. “I’ll be where you are—“

Immediately she shakes her head because that answer is nowhere near good enough. “No, Stiles. What you do want to do? What do you want to be?”

Furrowing his brow at her curiously, he hesitates, trying figure out where she’s going with this before giving her a careful answer. “I told you, I want to work in law enforcement—“

“As a police officer? Or as a sheriff like your dad?” 

“Something like that, yeah,” he answers slowly, before shaking his head instead. “Well, no, not really. I want to do something where I get to figure out the big puzzles, you know? Lay out all the pieces of a case and find how they fit together.”

“You want to be a detective.” The corner of her mouth quirks up because it fits him so well she can already picture it. “Which you most certainly could do as part of a police department. Or maybe in the FBI?”

“The FBI?” Stiles repeats, surprised by the suggestion but quickly warming up to it as he runs it through his head. “Huh. I guess I never considered that.”

“Well you should. I bet Scott’s dad would put in a good word for you.”

He scoffs loudly. “Yeah right. That guy hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you, he’s justifiably suspicious of you as all adults tend to be — especially those unaware of the supernatural.”

He purses his lips together, searching his mind for some argument against it but finds nothing but the opposite. “You really think I could do that?”

“Of course. It’s what you’ve basically been doing for the past couple of years already. You know you’d be amazing at that, you don’t need me to tell you.” She drops her gaze almost shyly. “Plus, I think there are some training programs in DC, aren’t there? If everything goes well, we’d both end up on the east coast.”

“East coast?” he repeats before the meaning behind her words sink in. A grin spreads across his face too fast for him to contain. “MIT?”

“After a semester or two at a junior college, yes,” she confirms, looking up at him and growing more confident at the pride for her she finds in his eyes. “I’ll apply as many times as I have to. To get the Field’s Medal, to do something that matters, it’s where I need to go.”

“I told you. You always know what to do.”

“I know it’s the right choice for me as a human, but the banshee side of things…”

His grin slips at the fear still hiding behind her eyes. “Seriously, Lyds, I’d go with you to Boston,” he promises, sandwiching her hand between his. “Not that I don’t think you’re strong enough to go on your own, I think you’re more than strong enough to handle anything and everything that comes at you and still rule that place. But say the word and I’m there. I’d go anywhere with you.”

“I know you would,” she says, softly acknowledging something that until the last couple weeks had gone pretty much unspoken since a high school dance hours before her life changed forever. “But I want you to be able to go wherever you need to so you can become who you want to be, too.”

Sighing, his chin drops to his chest as a stubborn sadness twists in his chest, though he knows everything she’s saying is right.

Biting her lip, Lydia watches his mind work and knows he’s experiencing the same emptiness she feels at the thought of all the space that will be between them. She hates it too and it scares her, far more than she ever thought it could.

“We can still anchor each other from different cities, can’t we?”

He snaps his gaze back to her at the quiet, vulnerable question and his heart pounds at the unguarded emotion shining in her eyes.

“Of course we can,” he promises, his voice rough with how much he means it. Bracketing her face with his hands, he fixes her with the strength of his gaze. “No matter how far apart, we’re always going to be each other’s anchor.”

A trembling breath falls from her lips and her eyes dart to his mouth before moving just as fast back to meet his eyes, her pupils blown, giving him all the indication he needs for what to do next.

He presses forward to kiss her, and Lydia holds her breath as a million different feelings burn their way through her. Hands skimming up his sides and tugging him closer by his shirt, it’s so right she feels like crying for all the time she wasted avoiding a moment like this one.

“We can FaceTime and text all the time,” he gasps when they pull apart, their noses grazing. “Visit each other on weekends.”

She presses her fingers tighter against his sides. “It’s not the same.”

He shakes his head, just barely. “It’s not.” He runs his lips along her cheek, his pulse thrumming. “It’s so, _so_ not the same.”

She lets go of the flannel, leaving it wrinkled from her tight grasp, and trails her hands up his chest. Pulling back, she looks into his liquid amber irises and something inside her strengthens. “We’ll make it work. _This._ We’ll make this work.”

Stiles swallows roughly, his heart stuttering and his mind going blissfully blank. “Yeah?”

Instead of answering with words, she answers him with another kiss; one that’s sincere and demanding and full of things that feel so much deeper than the next few years.

With a breathless laugh full of happiness and awe, he pulls back and marvels at the flush of her cheeks and the sincerity shining in her eyes. His fingers smooth back her hair and then his hands move to slide around her shoulders and down her back, wrapping her in a hug so tight.

She hugs him back with her heart caught in her throat, feeling the steady beat of his pulse pounding in his chest. They get lost in the embrace, minutes passing that feel like hours until they pull apart and watch each other with watery smiles and bright eyes.

Stiles looks away first, reaching out to swipe a ball of green string from his bedside table. Holding it out to Lydia, his smile widens as he nods toward the board.

She looks between the board and the green string until it clicks in her head what he wants her to do. Raising a skeptical brow, she can’t stop the amusement dancing in her eyes as she takes it from him. “Seriously?”

“There’s never time to update the board once we figure something out. It’d be nice to see some green on that thing for once. C’mon, humor me.”

She rolls her eyes but she’s failing to bite back a smile as she pushes off the bed and steps up to the board. Stiles follows after her, standing right behind her as he watches her trail the path to MIT and the Fields Medal with green string.

Stepping back, Lydia scrutinizes the board as he wraps his arms around her waist from behind, feeling like it’s not as complete as the green indicates. 

“There should be a spot for you on there, too.”

Shaking his head, he rests his chin on her shoulder and admires their work. “We can make a board to figure out my stuff later.”

“While I assure you we will definitely be doing that in the very near future, that’s not really what I meant.” She reaches up and curls her hand over his wrist where he pulls her closer. “There should be a spot for you on my board. You’re part of my path too.”

“Lydia…” 

She leans into him, her eyes falling shut as everything _Stiles_ washes over her. “I love you.”

Warmth spreads from his chest and through his limbs to the tips of his fingers where he holds her close. His reaction to hearing those words from her is nothing like he ever imagined it would be— he’s not stuttering and flailing in shock or running through heart attack symptoms in his head to assure himself he’s not dying. Instead he feels utter calm, steadier than he’s ever felt before. The words settle deep inside him and weave into the fabric of his being like they were always meant to be there.

He hears the gentle thud of the ball of yarn landing on his carpet and rolling across the floor before she turns swiftly in his arms to face him. Her eyes are wild and true and she barely lets him get a breath before her lips are on his. A low whimper tears from her throat and her hands slip around his neck and wind into the back of his hair.

“I love you, too,” he promises against her lips, bunching the fabric of her dress between his fingers and tugging her closer.

“Show me.”

At first he thinks she means it to be a command, especially when she urges him backwards until his knees hit the edge of the bed and he falls back onto the comforter. But her voice is too quiet and rough, and when he catches her gaze as she crawls over him, her green irises are so warm and full of affection that the whole moment suddenly feels delicate.

He reaches up and tucks her hair behind her ear before cupping her cheek and running his thumb along her full bottom lip. Nodding, the corner of his lips tug up in to a smile that’s small but sincere as he makes a simple promise to her with all that he has. 

“Everyday.”


End file.
